Will O’ the Wisp (13 page)

“I hope you don't mind my coming in like this and taking up your time. Time's money—isn't it? I'm in business myself, so I know all about that. And I don't want to take up your time on false pretences, either, because ‘honesty is the best policy'—isn't it? And I can't be sure that I'm going to build a house, because there is such a thing as not being one's own master, and circumstances alter cases—don't they? But I thought I might as well call on you and find out what a small house would cost if I was in a position to have one built—and I don't say whether I am or whether I'm not.” She paused, possibly for breath.

David thought her an odd person. Looking at her with courteous attention, his first impression resolved itself into details. Miss Down wore a hat of brilliant magenta-pink felt and a scarf of bright cerise; her mulberry-coloured coat showed glimpses of a salmon-pink jumper; she had on loose Russian boots to the knee and red kid gloves stitched with white. He judged her to be three or four and twenty years of age. Her features and complexion, rather thrown into the background by so much bright colour, were of a nondescript character, but quite passable.

“Well,” he said pleasantly, “what can I do for you, Miss Down?”

“I don't know—I just thought I'd call. But you'll quite understand that I don't want to rush into things. ‘Least said, soonest mended,' you know.”

She drew off her right-hand glove as she spoke, disclosing a very pretty hand with exquisitely tended nails. David noticed with a little surprise how white and soft it was.

“Of course you wouldn't be committing yourself in any way. I expect you want to know what different types of houses cost? Is that it?”

“Well, it might be.”

“Would you like to see some sketches? Perhaps you could give me an idea of the type of house that interests you and what you were thinking of spending?”

Miss Down dropped her glove and bent over to pick it up.

“Oh, I couldn't go as far as that. It's best to be quite fair and aboveboard—isn't it?”

“Yes, of course.”

There was a pause.

“What does a bungalow cost?” said Miss Down.

“Well, it would depend on the size, for one thing. If you could give me an idea of what you're prepared to spend, I could show you plans and sketches.”

“Well,” said Miss Down, “I don't know. The fact is, I don't quite know how I'm placed, and it would all depend.”

She exhibited a trace of confusion and looked down at her gloved left hand. The third finger, tightly encased in crimson kid, undoubtedly wore a ring—not a wedding ring, because there was a very distinct bulge in one place.

David concluded that Miss Down was engaged and wished him to be aware of the fact. He said “I see,” and smiled again.

“I wish
I
did,” said Miss Down with a jerk. “I wish
I
did. But I can't say I do. Gentlemen are things you can't depend on, and that's a fact—though I suppose you won't agree with me.”

There is a certain awkwardness about discussing with a strange damsel the probabilities of the gentleman upon whom she has set, if not her affections at least her expectations, coming up to the scratch.

“Gentlemen do let you down so,” said the lady. “Now
don't
they? Look at the papers—full of it! Married ones too, and old enough to know better!”

David wondered whether she had called upon him to discuss the prevalence of divorce.

“About your bungalow—” he began; but Miss Down broke in:

“What d'you think of a gentleman that marries a girl and leaves her without a bean? Here to-day and gone to-morrow, and the poor girl left to grin on the wrong side of her face. Wouldn't you call it a cruel shame?”

Miss Down had no particular accent, but when she said “shame” she made a little more of it than most people do; her voice was not exactly common, but it had an edge. Her colour had risen, and she stared at David.

“Yes, I should. It sounds a low-down trick.”

“A gentleman that'd do that would deserve pretty well anything that he got, wouldn't you say?”

“I suppose so. About this bungalow, Miss Down—perhaps you'd like to think it over and let me know when your plans are more settled?”

Miss Down got up.

“Yes, I'll think it over. It's always better to think things over—isn't it? Pity more people don't do it, especially about marrying—isn't it? ‘Marry in haste and repent at leisure.' We used to play proverbs when I was a child, and it's wonderful what a lot of good advice you can get from them. Well, I'll think things over and let you know. I thought I'd like to call and see you before I decided about anything.”

The telephone bell rang at David's elbow. He put the receiver to his ear and heard Eleanor's voice say “Hullo!”

He said: “Hullo, Eleanor!”

“David, is that you?”

“Yes. What is it? Nothing the matter?”

“No. David, Folly has remembered.”

“What!”

“Yes—last night. The name was in a birthday book.”

“A birthday book! Whose birthday book?”

“Miss Smith's—Miss Nellie Smith's. She
did
let lodgings, and George March stayed there with Folly just before he went out three years ago. Miss Smith asked Folly to write her name in her birthday book. And she says Erica's name was under hers, in the next space. She seems quite sure about it.”

There was a pause. David's hand tightened on the telephone.

“Does she know the address?”

“Yes. Will you take it down? 16, Martagon Crescent, Martagon Road, Bayswater.”

He wrote the address down and repeated it aloud.

“Is that right?”

“Yes, quite right.”

There was another pause. Into the middle of it came the sound of the closing door.

David said, “Thank you, Eleanor,” and rang off.

Miss Down was gone.

CHAPTER XVIII

Eleanor was having tea by herself that afternoon, when David was announced. He came in, looked round quickly, and said:

“Where's Folly?”

“She's out. Did you want her?”

“Yes, I did. I'm on my way to see Miss Smith. Thanks awfully for ringing me up—and I wanted to see Folly first to find out a little more.”

“I'm so sorry. Sit down and have some tea. It's quite fresh. Honestly, David, I don't think she could have told you very much. I asked her a good many questions.”

David sat down.

“When was Folly there? Three years ago?”

“Not quite three years ago. George came home after the divorce, you know. He was at home a year, and then he went out again and took Folly with him, though she wasn't quite seventeen. And just before they sailed they were in Miss Smith's rooms for a week or two.”

“I see. She's sure about having seen Erica's name?”

“Yes—quite sure. She asked about her, and Miss Smith just said she was a niece. She told her a lot about Erica's mother; but she didn't tell her anything at all about Erica—Folly said so particularly.”

David drank his tea at a gulp and set down the cup.

“I wanted to see her. Where's she gone?”

Eleanor looked worried.

“She's gone to see her mother.”

“Her mother!”

“Yes. She's in town, worse luck, and likely to stay. I'm most frightfully bothered about the whole thing. Floss is a most odious woman, and Folly has a sort of obstinate loyalty to her.”

“Oh, well,” said David impatiently. Then: “She married the chap she went off with, didn't she?”

“Yes. Leonard Miller. I thought she was out in Australia with him, but she isn't. He's there; and she's here, with a most awful crowd of people round her—that dreadful St. Inigo man for one. And I can't keep Folly away—I've no authority.”

“Where's George March?”

Eleanor laughed.

“George is dangling on the edge of matrimony. I expect to hear of the engagement any day.”

“What!”

“Yes—really.”

“Who is she?”

“A Mrs. Hadding—large, cheerful, managing, and very well off. She was on board with us. She'll do splendidly for George, but Folly won't stay in the same house with her for five minutes. That's what worries me so.”

David got up.

“I shouldn't worry. It's no use.” He laughed a little. “Don't play at being Grandmamma. You're not really a hundred.”

“Folly makes me feel five hundred,” said Eleanor. She laughed too, but a little ruefully.

“Don't
. What's the good? You can't run other people's shows. If they can't run 'em themselves, they're bound to smash up. Well, I'm off.”

“You'll let me know, David?”

“Yes, of course. But I don't expect anything. I don't see—no, she can't know anything. But I'll let you know.”

Martagon Crescent consisted of thirty narrow houses tucked away behind a row of gloomy shrubs and a tall iron railing. David rang the bell of No. 16, and almost immediately the door opened upon a dark passage very feebly lighted by a single jet of gas.

“Miss Smith?” said David.

It was a little girl who had opened the door. She said “I'll tell her,” and ran away into the dark.

In a minute she came back again.

“She says, is it about the rooms?”

“No,” said David, “I want to see Miss Smith.”

“Then will you come in?” said the girl.

She took David past the first door and showed him into a back room. There was a small fire on the hearth, and the gas-bracket was lighted. The girl shut the door and went away, leaving David with a queer feeling that he had been expected.

He stood in the middle of the room and looked about him. There was a horsehair sofa with a round bolster and a red woollen antimacassar. The carpet was drab, and the wall-paper had turned mustard colour with age, but the bright pink curtains were quite new. A rosewood table in the corner held a case of stuffed birds, a large Bible, and two photograph albums. Each of these objects had its own wool mat crocheted in pink and green loops. Over the mantelpiece was an illuminated text. It proclaimed, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity,” and its faded colours made a very fitting commentary on the text. Prussian blue, crimson lake, bice green, and gold leaf were all gone away to the same dreary dun. On the left-hand wall hung a verse from Timothy—“Flee youthful lusts”—and over the door by which David had entered was the reminder that “Wine is a mocker.”

Pope's couplet about the people who

“Compound for sins they are inclined to,

By damning those they have no mind to,”

jigged into David's mind. He wondered what Miss Nellie Smith was like.

And then the door opened and Erica's aunt came in. She was a very little, blanched person, and she looked frightened. It was the look of fright that stirred David's memories of Erica, and not any real likeness.

Miss Smith wore a grey stuff dress with an old-fashioned collar which came high up round her throat, where it was fastened by a mournful and majestic cameo brooch which displayed a lady weeping on a tomb. The brooch was so large that you saw it before you saw Miss Smith, who was not large at all. She had grey hair, which she wore in a fringe very tightly controlled by a hair-net; her features were small and neat. She was much older than David had expected.

She did not offer to shake hands, but stood just inside the door. Something very insistent said to David: “She knows who you are.”

He came forward.

“Miss Smith,” he said, “my name's Fordyce—David Fordyce.” And again something said: “She knows.”

“Yes,” said Miss Smith timidly. “You wanted to see me? Was it about the rooms? Won't you sit down?”

She sat down herself on the shiny black chair that matched the horsehair sofa. David sat down too. Miss Smith folded her hands in her lap. He saw that the left hand, which lay beneath the other, was shaking very much. It shook, and it picked at a fold of the grey stuff dress.

“Miss Smith,” said David, “I've come to ask if you can tell me anything about your niece, Erica Moore.”

Miss Smith swallowed nervously. She said, “My niece, Erica Moore?” in a fluttering voice.

“Yes,” said David. “I knew her. I would be very glad if you would tell me anything you know.”

“I—don't—know—”

“I told you my name was Fordyce. Had you by any chance heard my name before?”

He looked hard at her, and she winced. Her right hand weighed suddenly on the one beneath it.

“It's a Scotch name, isn't it?”

“Yes,” said David dryly, “it's a Scotch name.”

If he pushed her to it, she would lie; and for the life of him he couldn't do it. Instead, he said quickly:

“Miss Smith, please don't be frightened. I don't want to hurt anyone; I only want to know whether you can tell me anything about Erica that I don't know already. You see, Erica was my wife.”

She said “Oh!” but without conviction. If she was trying to express surprise, she did it very badly.

“She knows; but how does she know?” The thought came and went. The conviction that had been growing in him brought confusion in its train. How could she possibly know? Erica had told him that she didn't know her aunt's address; she had not written to tell anyone of their marriage. His mind went to their fellow-passengers. To them she was Mrs. Fordyce, not Erica Moore. Still, it was just possible.

“When did you last hear from Erica?” he said.

Miss Smith brightened a little.

“From New Zealand, Mr. Fordyce, just after her father died. She said she was going to Sydney to her father's sister. It was her mother who was my sister, you know—much younger than me, as you can guess. She didn't make a happy marriage, Mr. Fordyce. And she was so pretty. She was only my half-sister, but I brought her up; and then after she married I hardly ever saw her again.” She spoke in a quick undertone as if words were a relief.